The spring and summer months are truly lovely in most areas of the country. The warm weather brings lush, green landscapes along with bright, blue skies and plenty of opportunities to enjoy time outdoors. While there is much to love about the warmer months of the year, often these months can be a real drain on your wallet as you crank up the air conditioning in an attempt to keep your home cool and comfortable.
How can you save money during the warm summer months while keeping a cool and comfortable home?
Enjoy the outside, while staying cool inside this summer…
Well, here are a few energy saving tips to help you stop wasting energy during the summer months:
Install and Use a Programmable Thermostat
A programmable thermostat offers you the benefit of adjusting the temperature based on the hours you will and won’t be at home. It’s especially useful in warmer months because you can program the thermostat so your home is at a cool, comfortable temperature before you arrive. It is advisable to program your thermostat to 70 degrees or warmer during the hours you normally are at home. During the hours when you normally are away from the house, program the thermostat at a higher temperature for greater energy savings.
Turn Your Ceiling Fans On
Ceiling fans can help the air conditioning work more effectively by circulating the air more evenly throughout your home. Fans serve to draw warm air up so they can blend with cooler air that is blowing into the room from your air conditioning vents. By keeping the fans running on low settings throughout your home, you can help your AC unit function more effectively. Keeping all individual room doors in the home open can also promote greater circulation of air.
Weatherize Your Home
An air conditioning unit will work more efficiently if your home is properly weatherized. With some basic do-it-yourself skills, you can install weather-stripping or caulk around your doors, windows, plumbing pipe openings and electric outlets to keep the cool air inside your home and the warm air outside. You can also have a professional visit your home to ensure your home is adequately insulated. Adding insulation where needed can also help your air conditioning unit work more efficiently.
“In or Out!”…Keep the inside in and the outside out to save energy this summer.
In or Out
How many times have you heard a mother tell their child to stay “In or Out” during the hot summer months? Growing up, you might have even heard this from your own mother, a few times. There’s some good advice in that plea. Every time you open the outside door to your home, you let out the cool air produced by your air conditioning system and hot, humid air flows back into your home. The more times the door is opened and closed, the more work your air conditioning system is required to do to cool your home.
You want to stay cool and comfortable inside your home during the spring and summer months, but you certainly don’t want to pay for that comfort in the form of high utility bills. You can follow some of these energy saving tips today to minimize your home energy usage during the warmer months and to save money on your energy bills.
If you’re interested to do even more to slash your energy bills, check out Peter Lindemann’s Home Energy Saving site. He’s got a handy guide that can help you cut your energy bills in half. It’s our favorite e-book on the subject and could be worth hundreds to thousands of dollars in energy savings to your home or business. Visit Peter’s Home Energy Saving’s site here.
Programmable thermostats really help with maintaining a desired temperature in our home. One of the things that made our summer comfortable in the last few years was the great placement of our ceiling fan. We placed it where it would suck up all of that hot air and really help keeping the house cool and letting the A/C rest up.